2025 Reuben-Cooke Fellowships Open to Duke Faculty to Design or Enhance Courses

Thanks to funding from the Duke Endowment and the Office of the Provost at Duke University, faculty from Duke may submit proposals to serve as fellows with the Wilhelmina M. Reuben-Cooke Culturally Responsive Pedagogy and Practices Project during the spring and fall semesters of 2025.

Background

Wilhelmina Reuben-Cooke was one of the first African American students admitted to Duke in 1963. She went on to have a distinguished legal career as a lawyer and a law professor. In her personal and professional life, Ms. Reuben-Cooke exemplified resilience, leadership and the empowerment of historically excluded communities.

The goal of the initiative is to generate collaboration between students and faculty that honors Ms. Reuben-Cooke’s legacy. (Read descriptions of the work of current and former Reuben-Cooke fellows.)

Themes

We invite proposals from faculty members that link research and advocacy in their teaching or relate to social justice, environmental justice, voting rights, or public history more broadly in Durham and North Carolina. Projects that involve oral history, archival research and/or digital storytelling are especially encouraged, with a focus on digital preservation of the projects and stories collected. Digital projects can take the form of digital interactive maps, community storytelling walks and the collection of oral histories in various formats.

The following are encouraged but not required:

• Oral history studies of key figures specific to Duke University and the communities they inhabit
• An exploration of the life of Wilhelmina Ruben-Cooke and her impact on the higher education landscape
• Historical analysis/archival research on Duke University’s role in both fomenting and inhibiting social justice
• Digital creation of interactive maps of campus and the surrounding communities to allow students to explore the histories of the unheard voices that are key to Duke’s campus
• Projects that focus on the histories of social justice and civic engagement in Durham or elsewhere in North Carolina, including the importance of youth voting rights and equitable access to public goods
• Exploration of environmental racism and health disparities. A combined effort with the digital maps to show the impact of these issues is greatly encouraged.

Eligibility

All current Duke faculty members teaching a course during the spring or the fall semester of 2025 are eligible for the grant.

Grant Details

Faculty with relevant curricular and research interests are strongly encouraged to apply, especially those who have had experience with community-based projects and engagement. Each grantee will be required to produce and submit a podcast as well as a 500-word description of their project accomplishments. Both are due at the end of the funding period.

Faculty proposals are encouraged to focus on the dissemination of their findings via scholarly communities, which include but are not limited to conference presentations, performances, gallery-based showings if common in the discipline, and peer-reviewed publications. Faculty will also be required to conduct one podcast interview associated with this project. All deliverables are due by the end of the grant period.

Funding and Eligible Types of Expenditures

Grants of up to $10,000 will be awarded. Proposals requests cannot exceed $10,000, and 25% of the proposed budget must be utilized for student funding (e.g., for purchase of books, digital requirements such as software, conference presentations).

Faculty will also be allowed to request a research assistant within their proposal (student will be provided a specified stipend amount).

Proposal Requirements

The Office of the Provost uses Kuali Build to receive applications. You will be asked to provide the following:

1. Project narrative, outlining how your project focuses on racial equity/social justice; please articulate your plan, provide a statement of objectives, and note work already completed related to the proposed project, if relevant (maximum word count: 1,000 words)
2. Number of students you intend to include in the project
3. Working title for a future course (to be taught in [term] or [term]) with a course description, a short summary as to how the project fits into a current course being taught, or how you intend to use this research in a course (current or future) (maximum word count: 500 words)
4. Budget (maximum 1 page) and budget narrative (maximum word count: 500 words)
5. Current CV (maximum 2 pages)

Review Process and Selection Criteria

Applications will be reviewed by a faculty committee and will be evaluated based on the following criteria:

• Fit with the themes and project-based foci that are articulated above
• Potential for generating pedagogical and scholarly collaborations between students and faculty
• Public benefit to the communities of Durham and North Carolina

Timeline

• RFP released: 10/21/2024
• RFP deadline for submission: 1/3/2025 (extended from 11/15/2024)
• Recipients notified: 1/6/2025
• Funds made available: 1/15/2025
• Funds to be expended by: 6/30/2025 (for spring grantees); 1/1/2026 (for fall grantees)

Submission Instructions

Please submit proposal information by January 3, 2025, 5:00 p.m., via this Kuali Build application form.

Contact for Questions

For questions about this funding opportunity, please contact Gunther Peck, professor of history and public policy, at peckgw@duke.edu. For technical questions about the Kuali Build application form, please contact the Office of Interdisciplinary Studies at ovpis@duke.edu.

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Main image: Gene Kendall, Wilhelmina Reuben-Cooke and Nathaniel White, Jr. pose at Duke in 2012 as part of a celebration of the anniversary of their arrival on campus.